What should be the highest priority in terms of being able to use a fully FOSS phone? I feel we already have FOSS alternatives for most things that make the phone usable.
Perhaps free hardware might be top, but the S in FSF is Software and being able to avoid non-free software would be close 2nd, imho.
from their article it seems like they’re planning to reverse engineer firmware blobs for a phone that already runs a mostly free android distro (LineageOS). I know the importance of free firmware and stuff, but honestly, that phone is freer than most phones in the market. My opinion is that they should invest(?) in non-Android linux mobile OSes instead.
I think it makes sense to choose a phone that’s freer than most phones as a start, then fill up the gaps to make it fully free. As things are all phones have blobs (even non-Android ones).
I expect non-Android linux mobile OSes can also benefit from the reverse engineered firmware.
I get what you mean, but may be this is a start. I guess, this work can help them understand phone architecture better and the community can build upon their work to improve non-Android Linux mobile distros. However, I think this will help projects like replicant, droidian and grapheneos.
I hope it goes well… but imo firmware blobs in LineageOS shouldn’t be the highest priority.
What should be the highest priority in terms of being able to use a fully FOSS phone? I feel we already have FOSS alternatives for most things that make the phone usable.
Perhaps free hardware might be top, but the S in FSF is Software and being able to avoid non-free software would be close 2nd, imho.
from their article it seems like they’re planning to reverse engineer firmware blobs for a phone that already runs a mostly free android distro (LineageOS). I know the importance of free firmware and stuff, but honestly, that phone is freer than most phones in the market. My opinion is that they should invest(?) in non-Android linux mobile OSes instead.
I think it makes sense to choose a phone that’s freer than most phones as a start, then fill up the gaps to make it fully free. As things are all phones have blobs (even non-Android ones).
I expect non-Android linux mobile OSes can also benefit from the reverse engineered firmware.
I get what you mean, but may be this is a start. I guess, this work can help them understand phone architecture better and the community can build upon their work to improve non-Android Linux mobile distros. However, I think this will help projects like replicant, droidian and grapheneos.